


Arrow: Swan Song

by orphan_account



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Gen, Invasion! Crossover Event (CW DC TV Universe), Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 10:25:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18207134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: One-shot tag to the final minutes of "Invasion". The Dominator dream world has a more adverse effect on Oliver, leading to some harsh words and a heart-breaking decision.





	Arrow: Swan Song

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Arrow.
> 
> A/N: Just a very dark one-shot taking place after the Dominators were defeated but before everyone took off.

Oliver Queen watched as the gathered heroes started the ‘after-party’ as Nate Heywood had called it and turned, leaving the hangar. He wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. The Dominators had reopened some very old wounds, and it was better that he wasn’t around anyone right now, especially Barry and Sara, considering their roles (however great or small those had been) in the event that had haunted him for months. Oliver had never been a man who believed in such things as soulmates, even if he acknowledged that souls had to exist thanks to Constantine and the introduction he had received to the world of magic, demons, and angels. But when Laurel had died on that hospital bed, Oliver had felt as if something had torn inside of him, and he had been running on auto-pilot ever since.

“Hey, are you leaving without saying goodbye?” a voice asked, and Oliver stopped, taking a moment to register who had spoken to him. It was Kara Danvers, Supergirl; the alien from another reality. Oliver turned to face her and noted, with some relief, that she was alone.

“Go back and enjoy the party,” he said shortly as he approached his bike, digging into his pocket for the keys. “I’m not the person anyone wants to be around right now.” He swung one leg over his bike and inserted the key. “And goodbye, Kara. Good luck with things back in your own reality.” Oliver turned the ignition and then put on his helmet. He peeled away before Kara could say anything more.

Kara watched him go, troubled, but turned and returned to the party. She didn’t know enough about Oliver Queen, beyond what she had seen here, to judge why he acted the way he did. If someone asked if she knew where he went, she’d tell them, but she got the impression that aside from the people who had come with him to the initial meet-up, most of the Earth-1 heroes kept their distance from the man. Considering his bristly nature, she wasn’t too surprised.

“Hey, Kara,” Barry greeted, handing her a beer, which she took out of politeness; it wasn’t like she could get drunk thanks to her alien metabolism. “So, that was pretty crazy.”

“Eh, its an average day for me,” Kara said with a shrug.

“Yeah, I think I’ll stick to meta’s and the occasional cunning non-meta,” Barry said with a chuckle. “Hopefully the Dominators are the last invasion we see for a while.”

“Next invasion I know of is in 2266,” Sara said off-handedly as she approached, just as Barry took a drink. He choked and sputtered, spraying an unfortunate Kara with her beer. She looked at him with a scandalized look on her face. “Sorry,” Sara added, grinning in a way that showed that that wasn’t the case at all.

“And how do you know this? Aside from being a time traveler?” Barry asked.

“Vandal Savage was the choice of the Council of Time Masters, Rip’s old bosses, to lead the human race against some species called Thanagarians,” Sara replied with a shrug. “But they needed to nudge him a little. So they created a loop of sorts: Savage kills Rip’s family, Rip vows revenge, and recruits a team to take down Savage. They were able to manipulate everything because of something called the Oculus.” Sara’s smile faded. “Snart died destroying that thing. He gave us the chance to stop Savage once and for all.”

“But that invasion is still gonna be a thing?” Barry asked.

“Not sure, to be honest,” Sara admitted. “Kind of don’t want to go to that year to find out…” She looked around, frowning. “Where’s Ollie?”

“Dunno,” Barry said, craning his neck as he looked around for his brooding friend.

“He left,” Kara said, and two pairs of eyes turned to her. “I saw him duck out. When I asked him if he was leaving he said he wasn’t the person anyone wanted to be around right now and said goodbye. He took off before I could say anything else.”

“Okay, that’s not good,” Sara said, rubbing her forehead.

“Why?” Barry asked.

“The Dominators, they trapped us in the perfect dream world, to try and keep us from wanting to escape,” Sara said. Barry still looked confused. “Barry, who do you think Oliver would marry if he had the chance at a normal life?”

“Felicity,” Barry said instantly, and Kara looked at Barry in surprise. She had not gotten that impression at all from the grouchy archer and the perky tech whiz. When she looked at Sara, she saw a similar expression of disbelief. Barry noticed both those looks but focused more on Sara’s since Kara didn’t know Oliver much at all. “Uh, I mean, they _were_ engaged…”

“Oliver didn’t believe he was _worthy_ of the woman he loved,” Sara said. “And in the dream world, he got the chance to see what would’ve happened if he was. It wasn’t Felicity he was about to marry in that world, Barry. It was my sister. She was, and always had been, the love of his life. But he didn’t think he was worthy of her, and so he settled for someone else, someone who also knew his secret and had spent their time working with him. I think he did that as much to try and protect Laurel as he did because he didn’t feel he was worthy of her.” Sara stepped forward. “Laurel was Oliver’s Iris, Barry. Imagine losing Iris, and then experiencing a world where you got the chance to marry her, only to lose that all over again. What kind of state would that put _you_ in?”

“We need to find him,” Barry said.

“No,” Sara said with a shake of her head. “I already know where he’s going.”

**_*DC*_ **

Oliver left out a scoff of his disgust when he saw the two figures he didn’t want to see waiting for him. “Go back to Central City and your time ship,” he said, brushing passed them on his way to his destination.

“Ollie, I get it,” Sara said softly. “I was in that dream world, too. I loved her, too.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” Oliver muttered darkly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sara asked, feeling a cold sense of dread forming in her stomach. She and Oliver hadn’t talked much since Laurel’s death; in fact, this meet-up was the first time since she left with the Legends that she had seen her old friend, and she wished she had talked to him before now.

“It means, Sara, that you haven’t changed one bit,” Oliver said, turning to face her since it was clear this confrontation would happen. “You still run away when things are tough. You ran to the League when I needed you the most. You ran to Tibet and then to Rip when you were brought back. And when Laurel died, your idea of honoring her was run away and travel through time instead of _staying_ and fighting for the city that she _died_ protecting! You wouldn’t even be _alive_ if not for your sister, and you can’t even honor her that much!”

Sara flinched back as if struck by Oliver’s words.

“Oliver-” Barry began, but stopped as Oliver glared at him.

“Don’t even talk, Barry,” Oliver said. “As far as I’m concerned, you have some blame. If I hadn’t been trying to be a hero in the light, if I hadn’t been trying to be like _you_ , I could’ve killed Darhk long before that night at Iron Heights.” Oliver turned away from them both. “Now, get out of here, both of you. I neither need, nor do I want, your company.”

Barry stared at Oliver’s back as the man headed towards the grave before taking Sara around the shoulders. Tears were cascading down the blonde’s cheeks. “Come on, we’ll try again when he’s calmer,” he said quietly, and vanished in a blur of lightning.

Oliver stepped up to the grave marker. “I know that if you saw that, you’d be glaring at me,” he said, and could almost imagine said glare. “I’m sorry, Laurel. I’m sorry I never told you how I felt, never told you that you were always the one for me. And I’m sorry that we can never be together.” Oliver reached into his jacket and retrieved the pistol he had grabbed from the Bunker. “I just hope I get the chance to see you before I burn.” Oliver put the gun to his temple, clicked the safety off, and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, and I love you,” he whispered before pulling the trigger.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I love Sara, but in-universe, let’s face it: she runs from her problems. Its only out of universe we know that its because of the writing choices (and Guggie’s influence). There should be more of an impact on the characters she’s supposedly friends with.
> 
> Oliver never outright said it, but everyone knows he was trying to be a hero like Barry when he first became Green Arrow. IMO, he would associate Barry, however unfairly, with Laurel’s death.
> 
> I wrote this up partly because I have had to re-watch some of the old episodes for a project I was working on and, well, I guess I’m not quite as over 4x18 as I thought I was. But I also wrote it up cuz it made no sense that there wouldn’t be a serious impact on Oliver, at least.


End file.
